Impacts
by darkgemwildcat
Summary: Valjean stole a loaf of bread and was sent to prison. Everyone knows this. But what if he hadnt? What would that mean for all the lives he touched thoughout his life? multi-parts. first is Valjean, next will most likely be Fantine.
1. Jean Valjean

**A/N: So I was sitting in my Honors Chemistry class yesterday, and because my brain doesn't do math or science in any way shape or form, I was thinking about Les Miserables. I have loved Les Miz for a long while now, but I had yet to stumble on a decent plot bunny to write a fic. I had one over the summer for an Eponine/Enjolras fic (I'm a sucker for them, what can I say?) but I lost the rough draft somewhere in my room. Oh well. So anyways, back to yesterday... **

**I was thinking how unfair it was that Thenardier and his gang, who are professional criminals, were never caught, or could easily escape, whilst Jean Valjean, who only broke a window and stole a loaf of bread was given five years in a high security prison. Before he tried to escape, that is.**

**But then I thought; what if Jean Valjean had never taken the bread? Sure, he'd have it easier in life, but what about the people he met? This is the outcome of that. **

**The first part is Jean Valjean; the next parts will be the other characters, starting with (most likely) Fantine. **

**I don't own Les Miz. **

Jean Valjean

Hunger.

That is what drove him to this spot.

Jean looked thru the window at the warm, fresh loaves of bread. They, and the room they were in seemed to emanate warmth, a stark contrast to the bitter wind that howled outside, with hardened snow that crunched under foot. The baker was the richest man in town, everyone knew that. Rich enough that he could easily replace a broken window, never mind a loaf of bread. So it wouldn't be that bad to steal, would it? The loaves would be stale in the morning, probably then thrown out.

Therefore Jean would be doing the baker a favor, wouldn't he, by taking just one loaf off his hands so the baker need not waste it.

Jean's empty stomach growled, as if protesting his brains hesitance.

He was reminded that this wasn't just for him too.

His sisters husband had died, leaving Jean the master of the house. And his sister had many children, most young enough not to withstand being as hungry as they were for much longer.

Jean reached down and picked up a stone the size of his fist. It would be so easy. Just take his hand with the rock, smash it against the window, reach in, take the bread, and run.

The rock felt heavy in his hand, like an iron weight in his palm.

Jean took a deep breath. He had to do it, for his family. It wasn't something that was possible to mull over. No question about it. He must do this.

Or they'd all starve soon.

Jean took another deep breath.

His fist tightened around the stone.

He pulled his arm back, prepared to swing.

He closed his eyes.

Quick as lightning, his hand moved forward, towards the glass window pane, closer and closer until-

His closed fist, rock and all, stayed hovered just above the window.

He couldn't do it. He just couldn't.

The muscles in his hand, once ridged with certainty, now loosened.

The rock fell to the ground, landing with a thud, the clattering as it skittered at his feet, amongst the ice-covered paving stones.

He couldn't do it.

Dejected at his own weakness, but now filled with desire to get food in the honest way, he turned his back on the store with the warm, fresh loaves of bread and walked back towards home, not even seeing the police he passed just around the corner.

Police who would've caught him if he had taken the bread.

But he hadn't, and life would go on for Jean Valjean just as it always had.

**Please review, its my first Les Miz fic after all, think of a review as a welcoming present **** I'll try and update soon, but I cat give any promises, considering I have two other fics. **


	2. Fantine

**A/N: Thanks to everyone who reviewed! They meant a lot to me! **

**This Chapter is about Fantine. I've now written all the chapters out on paper, so they should be up soon. I would've been posting them earlier, but I was dragged into camping without any electronic outlets in a two mile radius for 3 days two weeks ago, and Thanksgiving was intense, mostly with my best friend coming back to my state up north from Florida, where she moved to with her dad last summer. And the food. So much food… **

**Anyways, please review! And I don't own Les Miz.**

Fantine 

For the millionth time Fantine wondered.

Why had she left Cosette, her little girl with the Thenardier's? How Fantine missed her so…

To find work, to provide for her Cosette.

Right.

But there was no work to be found in Montreuil-sur-Mer. Only the starving, desolate, and desperate, just as herself, stuck, with no place to go, no work, no money, no food.

No sympathy.

Fantine coughed, a deep, rattling cough, which shook her entire petite frame, and left her gasping for breath, only to cough more again. Once her coughing fit subsided, she spat in the street, whipped the blood off her mouth, and straightened up.

Fantine was sick, she knew this, she may have been uneducated, but she wasn't stupid.

Cosette came first though. The winter was setting in, and Monsieur Thenardier wrote her that her girl needed a new coat. No doubt she was growing into a fine, beautiful young girl, so clean, so happy, and safe from all the evils of the world.

She just needed to be warmer.

Fantine smiled to herself. Yes, everything she was going thru now was worth it for her Cosette, to see her pretty, healthy face again when Fantine was ready…

Fantine's smile faded off her face; because while Fantine was young, she was not naïve.

She was never going to be able to see Cosette again.

Fantine ran her grimy, torn, blistered hand thru her short and ragged hair. Money was near impossible to get, when so many people had none of it to spend. There were only a scarce few sailors from other, richer parts of France.

So many other desperate women, like herself had turned to earning what money they could get on the streets, waiting, starving, freezing to the bone, at the corners of streets, by the docks, and in the shadowed allies

Prostitutes.

Fantine was seized again by another bout of coughing, this one worse then the first. Gasping for breath between coughs, Fantine sunk to the snow-covered ground, her back against a wall.

When her fit subsided, Fantine looked up to the sky above, to the twinkling stars. She remembered, back when she was young and foolish, wishing on those very stars.

Some good they did. They never seemed so far away, so oblivious to the sadness below their heavenly light.

Nevertheless, she wished again.

She wished, how ever stupid it may be-

No. Fantine shook her head. It was too foolish.

But still she wished.

She wished, that, while she was sitting here, a rich gentleman would find her. He wouldn't buy her services, but he'd be kind and understanding to her plight, and bring her to a hospital, where she'd get better. Then, the rich gentleman would bring her Cosette. They'd be a family of some sort, and watch Cosette grow even more beautiful than Fantine, and then find and marry a young, kind man herself. And they'd all live happily ever after-

But there were no rich gentlemen to help her.

Fantine closed her eyes, despite the cold night air and sitting in the snow.

She drifted off, and dreamt of warmth, and little Cosette, and Fantine almost felt it was real, and in her sleep, she smiled.

She was found the next morning by a police Inspector, frozen solid from the cold and the icy grip of death, still with a hint of a broken smile on her face.

_Now life has killed the dream I dreamed. _

**Wow my brain got dark. Anyways, as I'm typing this, I have no TV, landline phone, or Internet, (though obviously if your reading this I found some) cuz we forgot to pay the bill. Opps. Anyways, I don't know when I'm getting it back, so I'm gonna work on typing till then. **

**Reviews will make me happier about my predicament. **


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